La Répétition Curator: Éric de Chassey In 1936, Marie Laurencin painted the artwork La Répétition. At first glance, it appears as a conventional genre scene. A group of young women is assembled; one holds a songbook, another a guitar for music, and another performs a dance step, while the remaining two observe.
Unbeknownst to the casual observer, this painting is nothing less than a reformulation of Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, one of the cornerstone works of modernism: using the same curtain opened by one of the models, the same number of female figures in a pyramidal composition, and the same chromatic rhythms – but with a dog replacing a still life in the foreground. However, instead of mixing heterogeneities, the entire painting is marked by a principle of duplication. Repetition is not only the subject of the painting (like rehearsals needed for a successful performance), it is also its method, embodied by the identical faces – duplication within duplication.
The history of Western art in the 20th and 21st centuries is marked by the notion of invention, synonymous with creative freedom, allowing it to assert its autonomy against utilitarian, decorative, or ornamental practices, where, since the early days of humanity, motifs and figures repeat, as seen in religious imagery as well as wallpaper or printed fabric. Numerous artists, including many significant figures, have embraced repetition as both method and subject, finding in it, for some works or systematically, a mode of work or a topic.
Showing how creation can proceed through repetition, whether as a means, a process, or even as the very subject of artists, counters this simplistic notion. This exhibition tackles this, offering a subjective selection from the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou, enriched with a choice of major complementary works, cutting across the stylistic, iconographic, sociological, and chronological classifications that normally dictate their presentation.
Where does it take place?
Luxembourg Art Week
Glacis square (Fouerplaatz)
Ville-Haute Luxembourg
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